LUNAR EXPLORATION CONCLUDED

Introduction

When the spacecraft Kitty Hawk returned from Fra Mauro on
February 9, 1971, the preliminary stage of lunar exploration ended.
Project Apollo, severely truncated in the budget cuts of 1970, entered
its last phase as NASA prepared to exploit the potential of
earth-orbital manned flight. Skylab, an earth-orbiting laboratory
scheduled for three long-duration missions between 1973 and 1974, would
lay the groundwork. Shuttle, the new reusable spacecraft that carried
NASA's hopes for a continuing manned program, had yet to receive the
blessing of the Nixon administration's budget officials and appeared to
be facing stiff opposition in Congress. After that, it would face a long
period of development that seemed likely to push the next set of manned
missions into the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Apollo's mission planners, looking ahead to only three more lunar
missions, intended to make them as scientifically productive as the
limitations of the system allowed. Modifications to the lunar module
were under way and the first flight model of the lunar rover was
undergoing tests. Landing sites for the next two missions had been
selected and a group of sensors for remote sensing of the moon from
lunar orbit was under development [see
Chapter 12].